2006, France/Morocco/Algeria/Belgium
Adventure, Drama, History, War
Buried with the men who served, France holds a dirty little secret about the treatment of their soldiers in World War II. Correction: the treatment of certain soldiers. While most of the French army was lauded as heroes, those of North African, African and French colonial decent -- “indigènes” -- were considered lower class in their own fighting forces. Director Rachid Bouchareb brings to light this travesty of mistreatment.
This film focuses on infantry recruits gathered from Algeria and Morocco who were trained in the desert to fight in Europe. Good at marching but ill-prepared for combat, the fictional troops depicted in this film are thrown to the front line, green and unprepared. The battleground is a rocky mountainside with few places for cover, and the men appear as ants crawling a boulder. Soon they are picked off one by one by the hidden Germans, but the native troops fight valiantly. Only after the German locations have been revealed do the mainland French soldiers join the battle with artillery used from a distance. The African troops were barely more than bait.
Bouchareb vividly portrays the horrors of war from inside the racing heart of a new soldier. There are no macho moments when grand heroics and stinging one-liners come into play. These are men proud to defend their motherland, despite the fact that to the rest of that land, the soldiers are not worthy of her. When a reporter asks a sergeant how many casualties the bloody battle cost, he merely replies that it was a great victory for France.
These men have joined the fight in the name of equality and brotherhood, all fighting against the same enemy. And yet they are not given the same provisions, the same promotions nor the same leave time to reassure the mind and family. They have volunteered to stand patriotically upon unknown soil and risk their lives in a war that wants to use them as resources but not provide them with any deserved rewards. One soldier proudly states to a Provence girl, “I free a country even if I’ve never seen it.”
Visually, this film is terribly engrossing. From the first tiled images of traditional North African culture to the soldiers who are allowed little representation of their heritage, the camera becomes a sympathetic character. At each stage in the military campaign, regions are viewed as black and white aerial maps, slowly washed with the color of the present day. From a distance they are united soldiers, but as the film comes into focus, they are battling brothers.
The actors portraying the men afflicted by this atrocity are remarkable. They maintain distinct personalities while working as one fighting body, and painfully express the anguish and terror of constantly facing death. Sweet-faced Jamel Debbouze (Amélie) balances a defensive personality with the lack of desire to lead. Picked on for becoming the sergeant’s lackey, he must preserve his original identity in order to maintain respect amongst his peers. Debbouze does so flawlessly.
Yassir (a confrontational portrayal by Samy Naceri) is a thief with a hardened personality wrought from the massacre of his family, who must learn to work with his new brethren. Messaoud (Roschdy Zem) is haunted by love at first sight with a mainland woman, and searches for any relief from war in order to find her again. Abdelkader (an intelligent and passionate Sami Bouajila) is the heart of the story, as he does everything right to achieve a recognized position of leadership, and yet is constantly held to the bottom with the rest of his disillusioned countrymen.
Be prepared for disappointment – there is no heartwarming ending with a tickertape parade. The truths surrounding these fictional soldiers do not permit such elation. This is a film of injustices at the greatest level. For what could be worse than risking your life for a country that doesn’t want you?